


Last Rite

by eirabach



Series: Testaments [2]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: "death", Canonical Character Death, Gen, Pre-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, Thunderbirds are Go! - Freeform, Well - Freeform, but better safe than sorry, just like one line of them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26542015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eirabach/pseuds/eirabach
Summary: Scott + Alan + can't go home for bad things happen bingo on tumblr
Series: Testaments [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933972
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Last Rite

He finds himself remembering his first embarkation leave.

He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about it  _ now _ of all times, but there it is, the memory forcing its way to the forefront of his mind. Him, all shiny and ribbonless, standing so proud in the doorway and his bunkmate, older, wiser, sat with bottle in hand, mouth twisted, words bitter. The slow, sad, certain shake of his head.

_ “Calhoun, aren’t you coming?” _

_ “You can’t go home again, Tracy.” _

Scott hadn’t understood him. Not then. Not even after. Because Scott could  _ always _ go home.

Before.

He slaps the comms cut off switch again, his gritty eyes narrowed against the sinking sun as he swoops down low for another pass. Calhoun had gone home too, in the end. All tucked up tidy in a too small box, and Scott had carried him there himself. The last, most important, duty of a brother-in-arms.

The last, most important duty, of a son.

The ocean burns red in the dying light, a lava field, its secrets swallowed down, down into the nothingness beneath. The comm chimes again,  _ again _ , and he scrubs at wet eyes as another sound joins it -- louder, insistent, a threat-cum-promise.

**_Terrain. Pull up. Terrain._ **

Tears taste like seawater, thick in his throat, in his nose, and would it be the same? Would it matter if he drowned on one or the other? Would the ocean take him and show him and --  _ Dad. Give me back my Dad. _

**_Terrain. Pull up._ **

_ Make me. _

“Scott?”

One howls as he heaves back on the yoke, relief and regret and denial all at once, and Alan is tiny isn’t he? A holographic afterthought amongst the spinning dials and blaring warning lights. Oh so tiny and blue and -- is he  _ shivering _ ?

“What --” he clears his throat, swallows the promise of seawater. “What are you doing, Sprout?”

The nickname,  _ Dad’s  _ nickname, falls out of him. Lands, with explosive force, as Alan’s little face crumples. 

“W-w-waiting,” he sobs. “Vir- Virgil says --”

There’s a howling sound, but whether it’s Alan or the blood in Scott’s ears he can’t be sure, only that he lets it drown out the words Alan can’t say. The words Scott won’t.

“You won’t -- you wouldn’t answer John and I -- Are you --” Alan’s shuddering, every word seems to take a superhuman effort and he’s just a little kid. He’s just a little kid with no mother to remember and Scott -- Scott’s lost his dad. Scott’s lost his dad. “Please come home. Please.  _ Please. _ ”

“Allie I can’t --”

“ _ Promise _ .”

Scott’s eyes flick down to the fuel gauges, to the amber and the red and Brains will have to take a look at that, because he hasn’t been out here that long, surely? 

“Scott,  _ promise _ !”

He thinks about Calhoun again, about that tiny box and the folded flag and the sobbing grey-haired woman on the doorstep. About how you never go home the same,  _ after _ .

One hums around him, still alive, still beautiful, still his father in every last line of her, and Alan -- Alan’s eyes are grey in this light. He’s never noticed that before. Not really.

You never go home the same, after.

He allows himself one last look at the abyss, and turns One’s nose toward the rising dusk.

“Promise.”


End file.
